Buy it... if you seek perhaps James Horner's friendliest score, one
that won't overwhelm you with its themes or performances, but does exude
an affable charisma lacking in most of his dramatic works.

Avoid it... if Horner's light jazz theme in the score is only a
brief respite from tired dramatic and action material that does
foreshadow many later scores for the composer.

EDITORIAL REVIEW

FILMTRACKS TRAFFIC RANK: #643

WRITTEN
9/24/96, REVISED 9/10/08

BUY IT

Horner

Sneakers: (James Horner) Touted as one of the first
mainstream technology capers from modern Hollywood, Phil Alden
Robinson's 1992 film Sneakers fell victim to its own
self-confidence. Press kits for the film were the first ever to be
issued on computer media, and the studio placed all its eggs in the
basket of a stellar cast that ended up chewing on a screenplay that
didn't live up to the concept's potential. Robert Redford leads a group
of industrial espionage experts on a mission of securing a universal
code breaker, but their intentions are sometimes mysterious. The quickly
paced thriller offered classy, urban suspense and charm, balancing the
hard edge of the technology with a sense of humor. Composer James Horner
used the occasion to write one of his lesser sleeper hits, a score that
has managed to endure better than many others of the era. Horner was at
a point in his career when he produced several blockbuster scores that,
despite immense popularity, had gained him little praise from critics
and his peers. The years 1992 and 1993 were a time when the composer
produced introverted scores more often than not; it was music that
followed a philosophy of less-is-more that led to some arguable
successes (Thunderheart) and some arguable disappointments
(Patriot Games) for those fans who were accustomed to his grand
styles of the late 1980's. In both quality and style, Sneakers
fell somewhere in the middle. It didn't re-use substantial portions of
Horner's other works, and introduced a few new techniques that would
definitely inform some of his blockbuster hits later in the decade. It
also took a few pages from the styles of Elmer Bernstein, Jerry
Goldsmith, and Danny Elfman, but, in the end, it still represented the
breaking of new ground. What Horner produced for Sneakers turned
out to be a more snazzy and less tense version of Goldsmith's The
Russia House, with Branford Marsalis once again providing attractive
solos on the saxophone. Marsalis is advertised with a picture right on
front of the score album's cover (along with the cast, strangely
enough), however his role in the score isn't much more than one of
secondary accompaniment. He brings life to Horner's simple
sixteenth-note themes with his crisp, stylish performances, however, and
aids in the upbeat memorability of the score long after the film has
faded away.

The bulk of the score is performed by handful of
soloists on synthesizers, Marsalis, select members of the orchestra, and
Horner himself. The only jarring breaks in the listening experience come
from timpani pounding to mark changes of location in the film. It could
be said that there really exists only one true theme in Sneakers,
though Horner uses a few familiar progressions to round out the work. A
suspense motif of sorts features a hint of elegance at the very outset
of the score. The motif begins with a variation on the composer's famous
"four-note motif of evil" from Willow and is a versatile tool
throughout the score. The composer then launches into a key-shifting
rhythm at the 2:00 mark into "Main Title" that Horner must have held in
high esteem, because he would eventually tap its distinct rhythms and
progressions for several of his scores over the rest of the decade
(serving as the eventual basis for the standout title cues in
Bicentennial Man and A Beautiful Mind, and especially for
the vocals in the latter). In that cue, the sax is combined with a
playful female choir that, in conjunction with a descending string
figure (that would be reprised to a greater degree in "Cosmo... Old
Friend"), will remind listeners of Elfman's styles of the era. The
action music in Sneakers is informed by Brainstorm in the
handling of brass in "Too Many Secrets" and would itself inform both
Apollo 13 and Titanic in the piano and percussion
techniques of "Playtronics Break-In." The actual title theme exists in
"The Sneakers Theme," "Planning the Sneak," and "...And the Blind Shall
See." Two of these three offer a modern, jazzy, percussive rhythm and
Marsalis' only vibrant, bright solos in the score. The piano's role in
the final cue is also quite enjoyable. The delicate piano introductions
in "Too Many Secrets" and "The Sneakers Theme" are direct precursors of
The Spitfire Grill and others, and they create an ambience of
technological magic that functions well in context. Overall, the trick
to enjoying Sneakers is remembering that in 1992, these ideas
were largely new, and the score was therefore a refreshing entry in
Horner's continuously expanding career. For collectors of the composer's
scores, Sneakers has a few tracks that are a must on any
compilation of his themes. While it may not be the classic that some
Horner fans believe it to be, Sneakers remains highly original
and entertaining. ****@Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:

For James Horner reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.16
(in 103 reviews)and the average viewer rating is 3.26
(in 192,698 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.